Embracing Leadership and Personal Growth with Branding Expert Cheale Villa - E91

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome, welcome, welcome. You're tuning into the Lead to Excel podcast, the hub where science meets leadership and transformation begins. I'm your host, maureen Cheyanna, founder of the Mindsight Academy, a trailblazer in the world of neuroleadership, I'm an executive neurocoach, leadership transformer and a neuroscience enthusiast, dedicated to empowering leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers like you. Every week, we delve into the heart of neuroscience to discover how you can unleash your potential, master your brain, manage emotions yours and others alter behaviors and exceed expectations. We're here to help you not just to survive, but thrive and flourish in the fast-paced world around us.

Speaker 1: 1:01

We're about to kick off another high-impact episode today, diving into a topic that is powerful, intriguing and has the potential to shift your leadership journey. So, my friends, it's time to put on your thinking caps, grab your favorite beverage and get comfortable. It's time to elevate your leadership to Excel, and so, hire, let's dive right in. I am so thrilled to be back again with another episode of Lead to Excel podcast, and I have a fantastic, amazing friend and I'd love to really call her a friend because she has become a dear friend of mine who lives on the other side of the world, from me in Seattle in the US. It's so good to have you on this podcast, chil Vila. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here, did.

Speaker 1: 1:58

I pronounce your name correctly. Oh, yes, yes. Awesome, it's really great to have you on this podcast, so I'm just going to get you to please introduce yourself to us and just tell us what you do.

Speaker 2: 2:13

I have had a branding, marketing and design company for the past 25 years and a few years ago I was inspired out of my own transformational work to get coached training, which actually even was inspired out of my work I did with branding with clients. There was always a certain amount of mindset work that came out of that and I went through coach training with accomplishment coaching and from that journey I ended up developing a second company called Core Ethos, which is really focusing on people leading their life from wholeness, because that was really reflective of my own journey of discovering my own wholeness was there all the time. It was just covered up by a bunch of stories and fears and all that fun stuff. So I am a serial entrepreneur officially, because I have both businesses and launching some programs outside of that as well, as I am a mother of a college age girl who is studying neuroscience and then it was well as my husband and we're here in Seattle with our pet zoo.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Thanks so much for that. So I want to take us back to before you actually got into branding. What was your background, what were you doing and how did you go into setting up a branding and marketing company?

Speaker 2: 3:54

Well, that is an interesting story right there. I was raised in the restaurant business. So my father, I, had a dream to own restaurants and when you're in the restaurant business as a family, you're in it, it's part of your life. Your conversation at the dinner table I was working cleaning dishes and stuff in the kitchen when I was even like in sixth grade Not like regularly, but you would jump in and be a child. You could do things and get a job a God job a lot earlier. But my father really inspired that entrepreneurial spirit in me to create something of my own and I really never felt like I was set up to work for somebody else. I just that life never appealed to me and I loved the freedom and the flexibility my father had. Even though he had to work a lot of hours, which the restaurant business is a very hard industry, he managed to open three restaurants. He was in business for 40 years and that is unheard of with a privately owned restaurant. So he knew what he was doing and, honestly, even though I had a separate, completely separate, type of business, he was really my best mentor, because, at the end of the day, business is business. There's always those key things that you need to be concerned with.

Speaker 2: 5:35

But yeah, from there, when I went into college, I knew that I wanted to be a graphic designer, but I knew I wanted to own my own studio, and the benefit to where I went to school was a lot of my teachers had their own businesses, or at least they worked as freelancers. So I named my company, visual Caffeine. In the computer lab in college, I tapped my instructors all the time for information on how do you get clients, how do you do this, how do you do that. And then, when I got out of college, I worked for a few years two years for a manufacturing company and that I was just like okay, this is the moment, this is the time I'm gonna start my business.

Speaker 2: 6:24

And I did, and it was around the website boom and that ended up being a majority of my initial business was. I knew how to build websites that weren't hideous and this is 1998, so you know, initial websites were quite hideous. But that was HTML yes, with HTML, and I coded them all, and that was actually self-taught. I never learned how to do that in school. I just was an artist but also was a bit of a nerd with coding, so it was an easy thing to pick up and but I would design people's brands and then and design their websites. That was how my business started out and I was able to get a lot of business due to the fact that websites were not something that was you know.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Everybody knew how to do well, so yeah, it was a good timing as well. Yeah, I think that is so amazing. I think this is where I think, when we got talking, we saw a lot of parallels in our lives, because I was a web designer around that same time as well. Yes, I was using HTML, you know, then to code and build websites. So, yeah, that's you saying. That brought a lot of memories back. But actually I want to kind of go back. So your dad was into the restaurant business, which he did for over 40 years. Why did you go into the same business? Oh well, that is something before you answer. Why did you go into the same business and how did you actually get out of it? Because most times in businesses like that, the expectation is that you would just automatically go into it. So how did you manage that?

Speaker 2: 8:21

That has to do with my father being an amazing man and he was raised by an amazing man. My grandfather was an entrepreneur as well and he was in the canning business and I asked my father when I was young, like why didn't he end up going into the same business? Why didn't he take over his you know grandpa's business? And he told me, like I tell you, and your sister, I want you to live your own dreams. And my father told me the same thing.

Speaker 2: 8:54

So there was never an expectation and actually he even told us that even if we wanted to, he wouldn't let us because he would never want that to be. There'd be kind of this hidden drive to like want to please him or something by taking it over. So, yeah, we weren't even allowed to. It was you need to find your own dream, build your own dream. And yeah, that is something I'm really grateful for, because I do know that, like that is the thing People have the family business and that's what you're kind of I use this term loosely, but you're kind of imprisoned by Absolutely and yeah that did not happen for me, nor did it happen for my father, and I'm grateful for my grandfather as well.

Speaker 2: 9:45

They're you know, they're all about our kids having our own dreams, and I think that we need to do that For our children. I mean, it doesn't even have to be entrepreneurship. People do that with their children and like, oh, you've got to be a lawyer like everybody else, and yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 10:01

Yeah, it goes. I know that a lot, being African as well, got to be a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer.

Speaker 2: 10:14

There you go, yep, and we only need so many of those in the world. That's exactly.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Exactly. So you then decided to, you know, go into branding and marketing. What? What would you say? Well, I know I'm sure there were many, but what was the main lesson? You would say you learned from your dad that you took into business when you set up your own business. What was the one key thing that you kind of always stands out for you that you really got from, maybe watching your dad run his business? Or you know what you learned from even working in the business?

Speaker 2: 10:59

I learned that customers need to be taken care of. They're a priority, they're the reason you're in business, but that the element that many businesses don't take into account is that to take care of your customers, you need to take care of your staff. Oh, yes, and that is something that my father did very well, and I mean he had events every year to celebrate them, to take care of them to. He had systems of reward and honoring them on a years and loyalty to the company and things like that.

Speaker 2: 11:42

My dad was very good at taking care of his people. He always said by taking care of your people, you're taking care of your customers, and so those values really carry through to people, even if they're not like staff, but they're even contractors. They're people who are taking care of my customers in a way, and so I don't try to haggle people or try to undercut them or I really want them to feel valued in not just a financial way, but in an appreciation way. So gratitude is easier to do with your customers. I will give people that, and you can take a lot of frustration out on your people, but at the end of the day, you got to remember that they take care of your customers, and so you really need to honor and take care of them.

Speaker 1: 12:43

So that is a big leadership tip there. That is so good. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you, so in terms of you running the business. You know your branding and marketing business. What actually was the driving force in terms of going into coaching? Why was that? In fact, even from your last answer, I can see a thread coming through. But for you, what was it that really made you want to get into coaching?

Speaker 2: 13:18

I feel like in business, when you're thinking of services or you're thinking of that next product you know from, even from a marketing perspective, the best place to learn what that product or services is from your customers, and it's not always directly asking them, but it's really paying attention to them. And one thing I noticed over years of working with small business people is their need for mindset shifts. They come in, they are inspired by this idea, they're passionate, but they're also bringing in all of these stories that have their whole lives that really block them from creating a business that they will be authentically creating, really making something happen that they have envisioned about. But they get blocked by all these fears and such. And I even had, you know, my own experiences of that my own business. I realized how much my fears and mindsets blocked me at times with things that I had to work through them. But where I noticed this most was in the branding process, because I have a very extensive branding process where it's a lot of conversation, it's a lot of really making sure that they're coming from a place that is truly authentic to them and they're coming from that internal place. They're not coming from this place of this is what my competitor does, or this is what they do, and that's a place that typically a lot of branding companies will be like. Okay, what brands do you like? What you know? Blah, blah, blah. And they're answering a lot of questions and they're really speaking from what I call clone club and then they end up with a brand that they don't like because it doesn't align for them, because it was created out of, basically, them speaking from their own story of what is the external world doing versus what is feels right to them and aligned for them.

Speaker 2: 15:37

But I say this in a long way. My apologies for that, but I say this with saying that that is what inspired me, because it wasn't just in the branding that they were being hindered from, it was in the growth of their company. So we did a lot of minds that work through that branding, that kind of chipped away at some things to help them move forward in a more powerful way. But then I thought, like they really have other, you know a much wider place, that of growth, of creating new relationships with their survival mechanisms, and that could really help them expand and grow and make their business happen the way they truly want it to. And by seeing that and looking at my customers. That was something that super inspired me Because not only watching it with them but experiencing it myself, because over the years I had coaches on and off and I noticed like how much when I got things out of the way, how much my business was able to move forward. And so kind of long story, short right there.

Speaker 1: 17:00

But that's interesting. That's what you've explained is really good. I like the way you explained it, because it's so true that a lot of times when people think of branding you know branding their business a lot of branding companies don't actually go that deep and what you're saying is that you actually get people to truly look inwards quite deep, and that is where a lot of people don't want to do, but doing that actually makes them understand themselves and answer the question about why they truly want to set up a business or even grow the business. I think that is so powerful and important. You did touch on the fact that you've gone through some fears yourself in terms of running your business. I don't know whether it's maybe when you were growing the business or in the business, but can you give us an example of how you know times that you've come that you've really been fearful about doing things, and how you managed to navigate through that?

Speaker 2: 18:06

Yeah. So anyone who knows me knows that I love my clients and I want like so much for them and I have a real intense passion towards that. But one of the things that would be crippling at times is if, you know, something happened with the client. Things didn't go the way I wanted it, you know, thought it was going to go, or, you know, they, they, you know they may have maybe like something was landing for them.

Speaker 2: 18:38

I could be even like things that are not even not at the ordinary, like obviously not everything is a land, and that's part of the process.

Speaker 2: 18:45

But that intense need to fulfill what the client needs and what was best for them, what's aligned for them, would actually also had this fear, fear of being rejected, fear of, you know, not not being successful in in delivering and at times that would cause me to have, you know, anxiety attacks or I would spiral, or you know the littlest thing that somebody else might not even like blink at, I would be like, oh my gosh, and I would spiral and and and it would be this place of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go to business. I'm like this is you know what, and all it was was like, oh, you know, a logo didn't land for a client or something, but I would get myself so worked up. But it's, and that is something that it took a long time for me to have processes of, really, you know, peeling a lot of that away. And when I got to, when I finally got to the the deepest part of it, how did you?

Speaker 1: 20:06

get there, though how did you get to that deepest?

Speaker 2: 20:10

parts it was working with an ontological coach, which is why I went and got trained as an ontological coach.

Speaker 2: 20:20

Okay and it was really understanding, like I talked about before, understanding my survival mechanisms, and it was my own journey of transformation with an ontological coach that, like really got to that deeper part and I was like, wow, this, this style of coaching it like it reminded me so much of how I already like work with people, with their branding and you know, like you like diving deep and what that I will say the the one thing that was really powerful into getting deeper is understanding my overwhelm cycle, because basically, those trigger that that thing would happen when I was massively overwhelmed and I was already getting myself to a place that was, you know, built up with a lot of different things. So then this one little thing would happen. I would trigger it on a spiral, but it was understanding, like I need to create more space in my schedule, more space for myself, and I wanted to, you know, create a very loving relationship with myself. I. You know it was a lot of different pieces, it wasn't just one thing.

Speaker 2: 21:40

But what happens when you, when I, when I did that overwhelm cycle, was it? It opened that Pandora's of understanding the deeper parts of what was going on with me and what, what in what I was allowing and not allowing in my life. I was not allowing me to be able to put myself first and love myself, but I was allowing me to have no boundaries with anybody. So, creating boundaries and developing a deep, loving relationship with myself where I would say, if you had to say the key things, those were humongous and that kind of took care of the power, that fears and the fears and the and, and you know that the and triggers and all the things were attached to that.

Speaker 2: 22:40

That was the healing.

Speaker 1: 22:44

That is so powerful, because it's interesting you saying that, I was just, I was just nodding here, because once you are able to really love yourself, once you're able to understand yourself, when, once you're able to understand when you're actually beginning to spiral and you know that, okay, this thought process is not is actually taking me in the direction I don't want to go. Just being able to understand that and knowing how to put a stop to to it is so powerful. And, like you said, once you are able to put things in place, then it takes care of the rest, because fears and anxiety, all those are symptoms of the deeper issue, so that that is so good. So, in terms of what you do now with coaching, who do you work with typically?

Speaker 2: 23:40

In coaching I'm actually working with not only entrepreneurs but leaders in corporations.

Speaker 2: 23:49

I, through the training program, I really fell in love with working with female leaders in general, and so I did a workshop with the London Stock Exchange and worked with some female leaders there and have now worked with some of them directly as well as entrepreneurs. So it's in. Now I'm collaborating with some other coaches that I'm close with and we're developing some programs to not only work with female leaders outside of the companies but actually coming to the companies with these specific programs that we find really putting in some unique pieces that we're not seeing in other programs that are being proposed to corporations. We're kind of coming trying to come out of the box in that. So yeah, and then I'm currently working to sell some spots and some group coaching, because I really love the group coaching. It kind of has that same thing with the workshop, where you're creating a community of support. It's not just the coaches in the situation that's giving the support, but the women supporting each other is so beautiful and I feel like group coaching really brings that as well.

Speaker 1: 25:20

So when you work with, for example, female class, how do you work with them? Because you've talked about running workshops and coaching. So typically, how does it work? If someone is coming to you, what would the journey kind of be like?

Speaker 2: 25:40

So if someone came to me and they were interested in working with me, we would have some conversation, because I really I think it's important that a coach and a client are able to equally vet each other and see if the relationship is really going to be powerful. Because, yes, there's a lot of coaches out there, but we're only meant to work with certain people. They're going to be the best people for us and it's in that relationship that you can create the most powerful shifts and it's a partnership. So I have initial conversations with clients, then we have a follow-up conversation and that's really to feel out if it feels like a good match and then going into what is going to be the best support for them, and it could be just one-on-one, it could be one-on-one.

Speaker 2: 26:39

In group coaching, it could be a group coaching scenario. So I really like to make sure that that is customized. As far as the workshops go, I kind of see that as almost a separate entity, in the sense that we're more going to organizations with those workshops. We may be putting them on outside of organizations with these certain collaborations. I'm doing, we're looking at doing that, but that's also where we can. For both of my collaborators we can also find one-on-one clients or group coaching clients for our businesses as well, so that's where we can put them on special.

Speaker 1: 27:23

So if a company is listening to you now, what kind of programs will you typically go and run in a company? Just some examples.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Yeah, so we're really focusing on finding ways for leaders to stay out of overwhelm, really breaking some of those cycles, making sure that they are able to. The one we did with Linnensack Exchange had to do with the change that a lot of changes going on, and so it was be able to show up in your greatness through changes all around, because we have a lot of changes going on in our society, companies have a lot of changes, so that was the focus of that one. Dealing with imposter syndrome we have a workshop for that. But all of these workshops are based on ontological coaching, which is focusing on your being over your doing. It's about the place you're choosing from. Am I choosing from fear or am I choosing from my authentic self? And so we style all the workshops around that.

Speaker 1: 28:43

Right, okay. So in terms of what you're doing now because, like we said, you're a serial entrepreneur, you're running the branding business, you're running the coaching business how do you manage running both of these at the same time?

Speaker 2: 29:01

Well, that's called having an amazing team to dictate, to Not dictate to Delegates Thank you, my gosh, I couldn't think of the word Delegate.

Speaker 2: 29:17

So delegating, really delegating to people's strengths and honestly, I will say I am not spending time anymore on things that I don't like doing, and that is where I feel like and I actually I've recently put on my profile on my Instagram is living a life that you don't need a break from, because I feel like that is where my life has gotten.

Speaker 2: 29:47

I've created so much space in my life away from the things I don't want to spend time on, and I am focused on where my time is spent, is where I want to spend it, and then I have a team to take care of the other things. So that's a really amazing place to be and and that has also allowed me, because of all that space, has allowed me to not only run my two businesses, be involved where I want to be involved and spend the time where I want to spend. I've continued in a leadership program with my, the coaching company I got trained with, so I'm in their leadership program, so I'm one of their program coaches, so I'm involved in now the training of future coaches. I'm on the board of ICF in Washington, which is the International Coaching Federation, and this is where I got my PCC certification and and then I'm also writing a book.

Speaker 2: 30:52

So it's like, and I have to say, if you would have told me three years ago you know, that I would be managing all those things and still feel spacious and not overwhelmed, I would tell you a liar, I wouldn't even think that was possible. But that is the power of really doing the work and always being in the work with yourself, because I think that it's not. It's not something that ever is ending. There's never an end point where the work is done. You just continue to do the work so you can go and rise to a higher gradient.

Speaker 1: 31:26

I love that. I love that, and that is a good way to come to the end of this podcast. So you know, to round this up, I know you if I, what you just said at the end is so powerful, but is there any other word of wisdom that you want to give our listeners to take away that they can take away as well, because you've given so much, you've given so many tips, but is there anything else that you want to tell us?

Speaker 2: 31:54

I would say one of the biggest indicators, I think and I could be wrong is of our, that we have stuff standing in our way, is if we are afraid to take up space in the world. But right, there is an indicator that you're being held back from your greatness.

Speaker 1: 32:19

So how would someone that feels that always in that situation, how would they take up that space? What can they do to take up that space? To me that is.

Speaker 2: 32:32

That is the place that you go and what you do is to is to that self love, that falling in love with yourself. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what fears you have, what survival mechanisms you have. You are enough and you were perfectly created for a purpose in this world and you can either choose the path of going towards that purpose or you can, or you can choose to stay comfortable. So this sounds weird, comfortable in your fears and survival mechanisms, but that is where we set most of our lives. We stay comfortable in that. And it sounds horrible when you put out the word fear with that.

Speaker 2: 33:26

But when you really think about it, that's what we're, that's what holds us back. That's not taking up space. But when you realize that you are, that you have the, that I have all the answers about myself, truly inside of me, I am whole and I have enough and I am enough and is that taking space up in the world is not a problem? You don't. You are no longer worry about what the external world thinks. You know that you need to do this or you need to be that, or you need to take up that space, because you have a purpose you're, the passion you're that's driving you.

Speaker 1: 34:09

I am enough. Yes, I love that. I am enough. And there's something else that you said that I just want to emphasize choice. You know we choose, you know, so we are the way. You know. I always say that it's our responsibility, it's a responsibility to choose, and whichever way we decide to go, you know the results, you know, will come from there. So the results are really coming from the decisions we make, the choices we make.

Speaker 2: 34:47

Yes, yeah, because unfortunately we choose usually the fear and we choose stories.

Speaker 2: 35:01

I will say that I've had those moments. I'm sorry I interrupt to do I was going to say I've had that moment. You know, I have many of those moments where I became, because of the work I've been doing on myself, I became so aware, so aware of that choice that okay, you know where I'm at right now is I'm actually choosing to listen to a story that was, that was a lie told to me many years ago, that has stuck with me or was protecting me for some reason, back when I was a kid. I'm so aware of me choosing that story and going wait a minute, no, I'm going to choose this instead. And how powerful that is to get to that self awareness and know that you are literally making that choice, because right now, most people are in a numb state where they don't they think that, that this is just the way life is.

Speaker 1: 36:02

That's right, yeah, yeah, and you see, I know we're kind of just continue, but I think this is so important because, you see, that choice you know deciding what you want to do comes back to what you said originally loving yourself. Because when you love yourself, you want to make the right choice and the best choice for yourself. And that best choice is not sitting in fear and worry and, you know, allowing the negative on true stories that you've been telling yourself or that you were told. You know. You know they're not true, you know that they are not, that they're actually false, but you choose to sit in them and believe them, and I think the self love is now making that decision that actually.

Speaker 1: 36:53

No, I refuse to believe this. I choose to believe the truth, and that is that. You know I am enough. Mm, hmm, I am enough. Oh, wow, jill, thank you so very much. It's just been a joy listening to you and you know you just sharing with us and going deep with us. You know, making us really reflect on ourselves. You know, thank you so much for coming onto this podcast. I really appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 37:28

Well, thank you for having me. This has been amazing. I love the conversation, so thank you for your amazing questions.

Speaker 1: 37:36

We've gotten to the end of another enlightening episode of lead to excel podcast. Thank you for spending your valuable time with us today diving deep into the intriguing world of neuroscience and leadership. And remember the journey to personal and professional excellence is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and every step, no matter how small, brings you closer to your goals. If you found value in our conversation today and it's packed insights or even questions I invite you to share your thoughts with us. Join our community on the mind site academy it's called limitless leaders community where we continue the conversation and share valuable resources to help you lead and excel. Please also consider leaving us a review on Apple podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Your feedback not only helps us improve, but it also helps others find our show. Sharing is caring, after all. Lastly, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. We have a treasure trove of insights, inspiration and expert advice coming your way in every episode and, trust me, you won't want to miss a single one. Thank you once again for tuning in. Until next time, this is Maurin Chiana, reminding you to keep exploring, keep learning and keep leading to excel. Stay safe, stay motivated and let's live a life of no limitations, because, after all, you are limitless.